What you need to know about TEN a day (and how to do it...)

FOR anyone doing their best to eat healthily and hit the recommended ‘five-a-day’ it will have made challenging reading: scientists at Imperial College London say we should instead consume TEN portions of fruit and veg every day. That’s nearly 1.8lb of leaves, legumes and roots to chomp through. Given that eight in ten Britons still fail to eat more than three (and a recent survey that suggested one in five parents believed the orange in a Jaffa Cake counted towards the target) it might also seem like wishful thinking. And is it even necessary? Here, Jennifer Low, dietician and spokesman for the British Dietetic Association, answers some questions raised in the wake of the new commandments… I’ll never manage ten a day... shall I just give up? It is important to understand that this is one study, and that the Government’s daily five-a-day recommendation has not changed. So don’t give up. Eating more fruit and veg is good and can be associated with lower risk of chronic illnesses. Is it even possible to get through nearly 2lb of veg? It’s do-able, but you’d have to plan your food intake to achieve that, which can be hard if you tend to eat on the go. What is important is not to eat ten portions, but rather look at how much you’re managing now, whether it’s two or five or seven portions a day, and see how you can increase that. Who decided we even need five a day anyway? This is based on the World Health Organisation’s 2003 report that recommended a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables a day in order to prevent ‘chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and obesity’. When the Government went to get this message out, it was decided to split the 400g into five, arriving at 80g as a reasonable-sized portion. So what counts towards my five a day then? Any fruit and vegetable: fresh, cooked, canned, dried or frozen. This includes store-bought foods, such as pasta sauces and ready meals, 150ml of fruit juice and one portion of pulses, such as beans and lentils. Potatoes do not count, as they are mainly starch. But remember that the 80g is calculated on fresh weight so, for example, when you have dried fruit, one portion can be just 30g. The website NHS Choices lists how much of the most popular fruit and veg makes up 80g. Why can’t I just eat five of my faves and be done with it? Different fruit and veg have different nutrients – vitamins, minerals, fibre and antioxidants – so to get the benefit of the recommended 400g a day, you need variation. What about red wine and chocolate? They’re made from grape juice and cocoa beans – that’s fruit and veg! Chocolate goes through many processes from bean to bar, and has too many other ingredients. As for wine, through fermentation the liquid becomes alcoholic, which we know not to be so healthy. Tomato sauce? Ketchup? A tomato sauce used in pasta, for example, definitely counts. However, ketchup is a highly processed condiment high in sugar and salt.